Miesięczne archiwum: Grudzień 2016

As in any business, in case of e-commerce you need to act fast. You need to stay open-minded and constantly develop system to meet the demands of a modern customer – says Piotr Czmoch, the owner of 8a.pl

What are the plans of 8a.pl company to use the e-commerce potential?

– Our e-commerce system is a professional online store, directed to strictly defined customers. Selling online, we focus on a narrow group, however we want to be the best in chosen area.

We don’t want to extend our product range with all possible physical activities. We do our best in order to our customer, the user of outdoor equipment and clothes – climber and mountain hiker – found satisfying offer in terms of brands, products and prices. We want the customer, a potential visitor to our store, to efficiently and intuitively make a purchase.

What are the biggest challenges of selling online?

– The number of challenges connected with online sales is considerable and despite commonly shared opinion: nothing comes easy. The competition is enormous, and customers more and more pampered and demanding. While making a decision to start selling online, from the beginning you need to fit the standards and have an idea for further development. Trade rules are becoming increasingly tougher, more professional and global. Foreign companies, which on the domestic market have already reached the maximum level of development, see Poland as an excellent area for „colonization”. Therefore, while selling online, you have to be prepared to fight for the interest of the customer.

How do you imagine e-commerce at 8a.pl and in Poland in two years?

– Online sales is developing dynamically, so that forecasting what will happen in two years, would be like reading tea leaves. Because it depends on several elements, among others: the economic situation, the expansion of „big players”, the mode of action of shipping companies etc.

What we know, however, is the direction 8a.pl wants to follow. Due to the growth in sales, we want to develop processes related to warehouse logistics. We also want the constant modernization of our e-commerce system, so that it meets the growing expectations of our customers. Also, not resting on our laurels, investing in our team and sales system determine today’s success in online sales – sums up Piotr Czmoch, the owner of 8a.pl

Among its product range, 8a.pl has equipment for mountaing trips – touristic, as well as climbing. The product range also covers: outdoor women’s and men’s clothing, trekking shoes and climbing shoes, high quality equipment and accessories for ski touring, as well as accessories for fans of outdoor cooking. 8a.pl store is the right place for climbers, travelers and adventure lovers. The brand has won many awards for the use of modern business e-commerce solutions. This year, the company was placed among four final companies in Mobile Trends Awards for the design and operation of sales system on mobile devices.

i-systems is the first producer of e-commerce software in Poland, being LIR at the same time. After receiving a positive decision, the company can support the security and development of its customers, while improving service quality.

What is LIR and RIR?

Starting from the abbreviation RIR, which stands for “Regional Internet Registry” one can find out that it is an organization, which deals with allocation and registration of IP addresses in the particular regions of the world. The custody is exercised by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), which aim is to keep order in IP addresses and domains.

However LIR (Local Internet Registry) is an organization, to which a pool of IP addresses has been assigned by RIR. Those addresses are further assigned to LIR’s customers. LIRs are mostly internet service providers, entrepreneurships and academic institutions.

What are IP addresses for?

IP addresses are used to identify servers, and their number is limited. Therefore, their price on the market is constantly growing. This is why an alternative standard, called IPv6 was developed, in which the number of IP addresses is enormous. Unfortunately currently most of the operators do not support this standard. But yet, there are IPv4, which availability is constantly decreasing. However, being among LIRs we have a pool of addresses at our’s disposal.

Theoretically, you can run any number of sites on a single IP address, however it is not advantageous taking the positioning into the consideration. Moreover, you cannot successfully run SSL, which is to provide data confidentiality and authentication of server, on such address. Until recently, it also assumed that one IP address is assigned to a single domain. Currently, standards allow to run multiple domains on a single IP address, however once again, this solution is not supported by all devices. What is more, many services evaluates the so-called “reputation of the IP address”. Let’s take, for example, spam servers, which have a low reputation, and that means that e-mails from these addresses are rejected.

Swimming in the pool of IP addresses

Previously i-systems rented the so called pools of IP addresses, and their number was limited. When the company wanted to have bigger pool of addresses, the older one had be returned. This, however, involved a time-consuming configuration of domains and security.

Currently, being LIR, the company received a pool of thousand unique IP addresses. It is strictly connected with security, as in case of leased IP addresses, the operator can ask to return them at any time, which would result in unavailable i-systems sites. Being a partner of the main provider of IP addresses, no one can request their return.

Another benefit is the fact, that when having its own IP addresses, i-systems can direct them to any server room. In case of leasing addresses from the server room, while moving, they stay with particular server room. Hence, it is another element of security, and moving between server rooms is no longer a problem.

A pool of IP addresses, i-systems received while becoming a LIR, is a pool of brand-new addresses, which were never used before. The customer can therefore be sure, that for instance a month earlier under this address there wasn’t any domain used for a spamming purposes or containing illegal contents. Receiving IP address from the server room is pretty like buying in secondhand, you never know who wore the clothes before and what happened during wearing them. Such address can be listed on blacklists and be blocked, and this can cause problems with, for example, receiving e-mails with orders.

Being among LIRs, i-systems company strives to improve the safety of services, being independent from server rooms and assuring unique IP addresses, which couldn’t be blocked in any way before. Having such addresses also affects better positioning. The company meets, at the same time, all the most stringent SSL standards, because one domain has a single IP address.